March 26, 2025 • 37 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (03/26) - The recovery and rebuilding efforts after the fires have been a complete disaster as only 4 permits have been issued to rebuild in Pacific Palisades. California's Insurance Commissioner skipped out on a bunch of meetings because he was on taxpayer funded international trips.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
This is why you came, right, Give us something good
and then we'll be happy.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. Well, you it doesn't matter who's here. You'd
still be reading the news every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Oh maybe not.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We are here from one until four and then after
four o'clock. If you miss anything, you can hear the
podcast John Cobelt Show on demand also on the iHeartRadio app.
In a moment, I have one question quiz, so be ready.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I hate quizzes.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's one question.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I know. It's just I'm so bad at quizzes.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's taking a guest. Oh no, I thought you were
like an A.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Plus student And it depends I was a.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Girl in the front row with your hand up all
the time.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Yeah, it just depends.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, well this is it is a math question.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Oh forget it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So what I told you.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Right after the fire happened and they started talking about
recovery LA stronger moving forward. I said, the recovery is
going to be a big botch if Karen Bass is
in charge of it, because she and her staff brought
you here all right. Remember you had city hall management,
(01:23):
fire department management, the DWP more than management. That whole
place is ridiculous, and they brought you all the conditions
that led to this devastating fire. We had an attorney
on yesterday for some of the palisadess residents who explained
in further detail what the DWP did to create this
(01:45):
fire situation. Not only did they have and they didn't
supply hardly any water, they also supplied power lines that
fell on the brush when a power pole snapped, and
that started a second large fire at the top of
the Palisades up in the hills there twelve hours later.
(02:07):
Listened to yesterday's show and you'll get all the details.
The question is, though, if we're in recovery mode, how
quickly are we recovering? So I'm going to play your
story from Channel seven in a moment, but I want
to do the quiz first and deborn. Eric, you can
give us your your guess. It's been two months, seventy
(02:29):
five days after the Palisades fire. How many permits do
you think have been issued for homeowners to rebuild? Two hundred?
Eric says two hundred twenty four four permits have been issued.
Here's the details from ABC seven Carlos Grnda.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
We want to get going the Palisades rebuilding residents.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
At this City Council committee hearing held on the West Side,
we're here to discuss how to move forward.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
The blessing here is that we have been given an
opportunity to show the world how you do disaster relief
and rebuilding effectively.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
But the Department of Building in Safety toll the committee.
So far it has approved just four permits. Council Member
Tracy Park, who represents the Polis Aides, says that's not acceptable.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
You know, when I hear in a committee meeting like
we had today that only four permits have been issued
and we're on day seventy five post fire, that is
concerning to me. And I don't think it is necessarily
a lack of interest in rebuilding. I suspect it is
indicative of systemic issues that we need to continue to
focus on.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Mayor Karen Bass hired a private consulting firm to oversee
the recovery effort. The contract with Haggardy Consulting is ten
million dollars, and some council members say that raises questions.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
We have city departments who know how to do this recovery,
who have been involved in recovery efforts of the past,
and yet they can't be afforded the opportunity to hire
the personnel that they need. But we can give a
ten million dollar contract to an outside agency to help
write a report for us.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
For me, just is it's obscene.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Some worry the city is in such a delicate financial
situation it could make the recovery efforts and even dealing
with routine city services that much more difficult. The city
is facing a budget deficit of one billion dollars next year.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
The loss of business and tax revenue is going to
impact us. I mean, we are looking at hundreds of
billions of dollars in economic losses overall here. And I
don't think there is any real easy way to sugarcoat this.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It's a mess.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Karen Bass, Ricruso, Ricaruso, Karen Bassu with Karen Bass running things.
And by the way, you notice the only two council
people speaking out in support of the homeowners who are
suffering has been Tracy Park and Monica Rodriguez. The only
(04:59):
one who've been critical of everybody in government running these
various departments looking for explanations. Now, how do you I'm
confused here. The Department of Building in Safety said they've
approved only four permits they've had.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
What do they do all day?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
John, they must be very busy going through all the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
And you know it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Just four permits have consumed the last eleven weeks. What
is that a permit every two weeks roughly?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
It's the people who lost their home's fault. They're feeling
out things incorrectly or they're doing something wrong.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
We're going to come to that. I bet I bet
you eventually you're going to hear some of these. They're
going to be sources at the Department of Building and
Safety who are going to blame the Palisades owners the
same way we played that of one of Bass's underlings
blaming the Palisades owners for not doing the proper brush clearance.
Remember ye that they're living in a fire prone area
(06:10):
and you know they should have known this was coming.
So I suspect that's what most people in city Hall,
in these various agencies think. I'm sure they have a
day to day hostility towards the homeowners who got burned
out and they find this whole situation to be just
a big burden on them. They're forced to do work
(06:31):
that they don't want to do, that they don't do well.
And then people are now going to be complaining. The
Palisades homeowners are going to be yelling at them for
the next seven years.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And they don't like that. They're used to sitting in.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Their little hovels or better yet, they're at home in
their bathrooms and fuzzy slippers, and now they've got to
do work. You know, they're used to laying on the
sofa with a bowl of popcorn and their cats, watching
daytime television.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And they be laid off soon.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, then what's going to happen exactly, which brings us
to Haggardy Consulting. Now they're getting ten million dollars. What
are they doing with ten million dollars? Because la is
broke and as Tracy Park pointed out, we're just going
to get broker and broker because the revenue is falling
(07:22):
substantially in every every source of taxation is dropping, sales tax,
property tax, you name it, the mansion tax. They're actually
thinking of suspending the mansion tax. That five and a
half percent extra tax on homes that sell over five
million dollars. They because there's a lot of people in
(07:43):
the Palisades, they can't they can rebuild their home, but
they sell it, they got to pay five and a
half percent, and so they want some kind of pause here.
You want to give away five and a half percent
after the fire and give it to the people who
were incompetent at handling the fire. I mean, I can't
(08:08):
imagine how furious the people in the Palisades are.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Oh and I'm sure the DWP is going to be
raising rates as well.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well. Yeah, because because.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
They're going to have so many lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
They got to pay for the water to fill up
that reservoir.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Jessica Rodgers, you may have heard her quote and she
says the blessing here and I thought this is a
bizarre quote. She's president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association.
I guess she's trying to be positive. The blessing here
is we've been giving an opportunity to show the world
how you do disaster relief and rebuilding effectively. That's not
(08:43):
going to happen. The disaster reef and rebuilding is not
going to be effective. It's going to drag on for many,
many years because Karen Bass and all the city workers
that predate her in downtown Los Angeles are lazy and
incompetent and stupid. And I used to say this years ago,
(09:06):
and people would say, oh, could you do that?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
How could you say that? It's like, what, It's obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
It's like looking up in the sky and saying, wow,
the sky is blued today. It's obvious. And now here's
a test case. Four permits. What did I tell you
yesterday about after the fire Lehana? It's now I think
a year and nine months. You know how many homes
(09:32):
have been rebuilt? Six So we've got four permits in
seventy five days in Hawaii. Six homes in a year
and nine months. This is this is the way the
government is. This is the bureaucracy. They make it impossible
and complicated, and they're lazy and they're stupid. And I'm sorry.
(09:56):
You're going to see You could say, oh, you're being mean,
your stereotyped thing. Bryst like, okay, okay, you see what happens.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
You're not being very positive.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Didn't a moist pine collar call in last week and
say that you're not positive.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yes, yes he did, I'm not positive. Okay, well I'm
looking for something to be positive about.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
La Strong.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
Was that?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah? Whooao Li Strong.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We're going forward shouting out stupid slogans, doesn't build homes.
When we come back, we're gonna tell you the story
of Ricardo Lara cal Fart Lara as he's done around here.
He's the insurance commissioner. He is getting a lot of
(10:42):
heat because he went to Bermuda instead of attending a
legislative hearing on the insurance industry. And they only have
two or three of these a year, and he decided
not to show up because he went to Bermuda because again,
you stay here, you got to deal with the La fire.
You gotta deal with the Altadena fire. And you know,
(11:03):
everybody's upset. They're getting their insurance canceled. The insurance companies
aren't paying off for the fires. You know, State farms
jacking up the rates. Other companies are pulling out. Oh
that's a lot of work, This is a pain in
the ass. How about we go to Bermuda. Turns out
he's gone on a lot of trips and it's not
unusual for him not.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
To show up. We'll talk about it coming up.
Speaker 9 (11:27):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Welcome Moistline Friday eight seven seven Moist eighty six. You
want to get in on it eight seven seven Moist
eighty six, or use the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.
Cal part Lara Ricardo Lara, who went from being an
idiot legislator in Sacramento introducing bills where he wanted to
(11:54):
require all cows to wear a large device on their
backs so when they fart, the device would capture said
fart and the methane and then they could recycle it
or bury it or I don't know what this was
to slow down climate change. Swear to God, this guy
(12:16):
ends up being the insurance commissioner. And what do you
know when you have a guy who's such an idiot
that he gets a bill passed to regulate cow farts
and to require cows to wear some complex device on
their backs. You put them in charge of the insurance industry.
(12:38):
You think it's going to turn out, Well, well it
hasn't because insurance is so effed up and talking about
it in any detail, it gets really dry and poor.
Speaker 10 (12:51):
It.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
However, I know just from personal experience, almost everybody is
angry about their insurance in this state. Its extremely expensive.
It's going up like crazy, not only homeowners insurance, car insurance,
fire insurance, earthquake insurance, all of it. And we've had
all these fires and disasters. And I don't know if
(13:12):
you noticed. This week they expanded the fire maps. The
fire maps now that cal fire put out cover a
much larger geographical area, which means more and more of
you are going to get whacked with bigger fire insurance bills.
By the way, I can't believe the price of car insurance.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
My wife called me over a couple of nights ago
and she goes, look at this, and I was in shock.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
It's crazy how expensive it is.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
She handles all the bills and sometimes I go wild
in between keeping track of what those kind you know
what insurance costs?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Oh my god, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And it comes up and you haven't been in an accident, right?
Speaker 5 (13:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
In fact, when I get into minor bumps, we paid
out of pocket. Yes, there's no point in reporting it,
you know, Between the deductible and and your premiums going up.
You know, I'd be better off just driving the car
to a lake, which is.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Why you need to take mass transit.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Oh, what was that latest disaster today?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Didn't diet a truck and a metrorail collide. I forget where.
I just saw a headline. To me, it was just
another day. Was yeah, well, so we're gonna play you
report here because cal fart Lara skipped off to Bermuda
(14:37):
rather than talk to the legislature about the insurance situation
in the state. A lot of people in the Palisades
had their insurance pulled and they end up in the
Fair Plan, which is the state run plan. And the
Fair Plan will only cover you up to three million dollars,
(14:57):
which doesn't go very far in the Palisades obviously, and
I don't know what the proportion is for homes that
are that don't cost as much. But there a few
weeks ago there was going to be a hearing and
an assemblyman on the commit Insurance Committee, David Tanjepa, he's
(15:21):
a Republican from Fresno. He's on the Insurance Committee, Tanjeepa,
and he had said this publicly. I really believe we
need a larger sense of urgency for the issues we
see today. It's dire. If we look at the California
Fair Plan, listen to this. We barely have three hundred
(15:41):
and fifty million dollars to cover four hundred and fifty
billion dollars in assets the people who have homes insured
under the Fair Plan. Those homes are worth four hundred
and fifty billion dollars in total. What the Fair Plan
has in its bank account is three hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's less than one percent. He says.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
We need leaders in the state, especially the Insurance Commissioner,
being here to go to every single meeting because every
single California is going to feel this. And of course
Lara skipped out on a hearing to go to Bermuda
to speak at a conference. And Lara has been criticized
(16:29):
as well because it took him a long time to
try to come up with a new plan to stabilize
California's insurance market. Because since twenty twenty three, seven of
the twelve largest insurance companies have either limited their policies
(16:52):
or stopped providing policies. They pulled out either completely or partially,
and he's supposed to come up with through regulations, but
he's not showing up for meetings. When he finally showed
up for a meeting, they wanted to know why it
took you so long, and Lara replied, well, could I
(17:12):
have moved quicker?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Absolutely? Well, but why didn't you?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
He's getting scolded by the legislators for taking way too
long to come up with a plan because the insurance
situation is a disaster. Oh could I have done better? Absolutely,
but you didn't. You didn't do better. You failed. Why
because you're cal fart, Lara. You're not qualified to do this.
(17:40):
And maybe for years and years nobody knew who the
insurance commissioner was. Maybe it didn't matter, but now insurance
is extremely expensive.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
A lot of people can't get it.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You've you've had these these fires because of the incompetence
of Karen Bass and Genie Kinoniez and Kristin Crowley and
the city council all the rest the county leaders. You
know in Altadena, not to mention the fires in Northern California.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Insurance.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
If you read an insurance company, would would you write
a fire policy here? Would you write a fire policy
in the Palisades. The reason that Palisades Insure the insurance
company pulled out of the Palisades. They knew the reservoir
was empty, they knew two of them were empty. They
saw that the brush clearance was simply not done. They
fly drones over the Palisades and they said, oh, this
(18:34):
doesn't look good. They got out of there. All right,
we come back eighty seven. We have to go to
San Francisco because nobody, nobody down here is going to
report on it. Stephanie Sierra, she's gonna She did a
long story on Ricardo Lara taking not just the trip
(18:59):
to Bermuda and he was supposed to be at a hearing,
he took a series of taxpayer funded trips, skipped out
on a series of meetings. So cal fart Lara, like
Karen Dass, would rather travel out of the country than
do their jobs while everything's burning. That's coming up next.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Part of the reason the insurance industry is so screwed
up here in California, there's a number of reasons. There
are a lot of natural disasters in this state, and
part of it is we have an incompetent legislature, an
incompetent boob. Who's the commissioner. His name is Ricardo Lara,
(19:52):
so old cal fart. Lara was the subject of a
story ABC seven Bay Area a reporter named Stephanie Cara.
This is about Ricardo Lara going on a series of
taxpayer funded trips. We've told you about how he ran
off to Bermuda recently instead of appearing at a Senate hearing,
(20:12):
and he has skipped out on a number of meetings
so he could bounce around. He ain't. Karen bass I
don't know if they had the same travel agents. Now,
this is a long report, so we're probably going to
have to play this in sections and see where it
takes us.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
As California's insurance crisis HiT's a breaking point, the state's
top insurance boss is nowhere to be found. During the
legislature's first insurance briefing of the year, a Senate Committee
hearing in the wake of the LA.
Speaker 11 (20:38):
Flyers, Michael Martinez here on behalf of Insurance commission Ricardi Lota.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So where's the commissioner?
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Turns out he was at a conference in Bermuda with
insurance executives to give a fifteen minute speech. Lada did
the same thing in March twenty twenty three and twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (20:54):
Four, Karen behalf of Insurance commission Ricardo Laura.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
Missing another assembly insurance here also while he was on
the islands in Bermuda. Yet weeks later, the Commissioner was
able to make a legislative study tour in the UK
for eight days, and he wasn't laid for his climate
presentation to the Central Bank of Uruguay later that month,
and he definitely did not miss his flight to Honolulu
(21:19):
the following week for a policy training. Public records show
taxpayers picked up his four star hotel bill. And this
didn't just happen once or twice, but at least seven
other times. We found the Commissioner was absent from insurance meetings,
some while traveling abroad or across country. During his first
year in office, Commissioner Lada missed two insurance hearings while
(21:40):
on trips to DC and to Florida. Now in between
those two trips, he took another six thousand dollars trip
to Paris for an economic development conference. Taxpayers picked up
that bill.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
And as we found out.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
This trend continued from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two.
Records show Commissioner Lada was absent for the only two
Senate insurance hearings held that year, according to his schedule,
he had prior engagements. Same story. The year after that,
in March twenty twenty three, the Commissioner was absent for
the first Senate insurance hearing of the year.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Why.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Record show he was on a taxpayer.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
Funded trip to Toronto for a United Nations conference on
sustainable finance. Unclear if there was any relevance to California insurance.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Hells, that's right, it stops sustainable finance.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. What a
load of craps.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
What these the scam these scammers, They create these conferences,
and if they use the word sustainable, that's supposed to
justify all these politicians and lobbyists and grifters and schemers
to spend taxpayer money to fly there and enjoy all
the food and the booze and the hookers. Mike, by
the way, I've been taking notes. He's got to Uruguay,
(22:58):
the uk DC, Florida, Paris, Toronto, and Honolulu.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
You know, I love to travel too, John, Right, maybe
I need to get his job.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Maybe you should run for insurance commitment.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And then I'll get all these trips.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How bad could you be for free? For free? There
you go work for free? So how about that?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And this is all by the way, she was listing
the trips he took when he missed Senate committee hearings
on insurance. And he's the commissioner, and we got a
thousand problems with insurance. My god, DC, Florida, Toronto, Honolulu, Uruguay, Uruguay,
the UK. And this last trip that he took to Bermuda,
(23:45):
he only spoke for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
He could have done that by zoom.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Does zoom work in Bermuda?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Probably?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Maybe the Bermuda triangle got in the way.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, if he had to do something, I mean,
I mean just zoom and project it on a screen
up on stage. He doesn't have to fly to Bermuda
for fifteen minutes. And the state senators they don't understand
the insurance industry. You know, they vote based on how
(24:22):
much bribe money that they get from the insurance companies.
Nobody's representing the public there. It's supposed to be Lara
representing the public. We know what the politicians are going
to do because they're getting campaign checks.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
You know what's really irritating about insurance is we pay
so much money, as you were talking about righteous car insurance.
We pay so much money and then when there is
a car accident, or an accident or a fire, then
all of a sudden the rates get raised or insurance
companies can't afford anymore to ensure us.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Well, then why are we bothering to pay for insurance?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I know, I mean, look at the people in the palisade.
There's a hard cap on the Fair Plan. People are
in the Fair Plan, which is the state run plan,
only because the other insurance counties kick them out right,
So what are we supposed to do? How are people
supposed to live in this state? Because we have a
half thundered fire department. We have the DWP that left
(25:19):
two major reservoirs empty.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We have a mayor who flew to Africa. What's with all.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
This flying around? He's going to Uruguay. She's going to Africa.
She went to Africa for a cocktail party. He went
to Bermuda for fifteen minutes of a speech, fifteen minutes.
I mean, because it's not about the cocktail party with
(25:48):
the Ghanian president, it's not about speaking before the insurance industry.
It's about they want to live the high life while
they're in office. When they get out of office, all
this disappears, and they're very sad and depressed because right
now they're living off us suckers, and you people keep
(26:10):
voting for these greedy morons. Karen Bass loved being a
congresswoman for ten years because of the travel. She traveled
to Africa a lot. She decided that was going to
be her area of focus. Why what that had to
do with the constituents back in La Nothing. But you know,
(26:34):
everybody's got their favorite part of the world they want
to visit, and hers is Africa. You know, if I
could get the company here to pay for you know,
six trips to Italy, I'd do that. Yeah, I got
Italy every two months. If they wanted to pay, I'd like.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
To go back to Dubai and finish my trip.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well, wait till I tell you about the Dubai story.
Oh no, oh, yeah, I got a battle story. You
saw that. I've known about it for long before the
story came up in an email.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I guess I wasn't on the email.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, no, actually I don't put you on the email.
All right, let's play more of this.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
We found out this trend continued from twenty twenty one
to twenty twenty two. Record show Commissioner Ladda was absent
for the only two Senate insurance hearings held that year,
according to his schedule, he had prior engagements. Same story
the year after that, in March twenty twenty three, the
Commissioner was absent for the first Senate insurance hearing of
(27:29):
the year.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Why.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Record show he was on a taxpayer funded trip to
Toronto for a United Nations conference on sustainable finance. Unclear
if there was any relevance to California's insurance market, but
taxpayers paid for his three night long stay. Then, on
May tenth of that year, he missed the next Senate
insurance hearing. Unclear why his schedule shows he was working
(27:52):
that day.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
He travels a lot, He's everywhere, but in his chair.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
Yet, the state told us Commissioner Ladda's rigorous meeting schedule
is a key part of his commitment to protecting consumers
and safeguarding the integrity of the insurance market. I asked
the chair of the Senate Insurance Committee about it.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Were you surprised by that?
Speaker 11 (28:09):
What's your response to these repeated absences?
Speaker 10 (28:13):
Well, I have to say that I have had many
hearings where he is present and many times. You know,
the legislature has its own calendar.
Speaker 11 (28:21):
And when you say many, I just looked at all
of the meetings that took place since he was elected
in twenty nineteen, and he had only appeared for the
informational hearings to two of them, and one of those
two times was via zoom.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
Well, I've been chair of the Insurance Committee for six
years and unfortunately we had two years in betrained where
we we're not allowing people to come and present in person,
and so there's many times where he did present via zoom.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Video recordings from the Senate website show LATA only joined
those hearings via zoom once.
Speaker 10 (28:50):
Oh, inter, thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
In January twenty twenty four, and that hearing was the
first one hosted after the governor signed an executive order
calling a LADA to do more to address the insurance crisis.
Record show after that, he attended.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
That was Senator State Senator Susan Rubio, who's involved in
her own scandal on the side, which is not worth
getting into. But do you realize she said, I've seen
him many times at the hearings, and it turned out
it was twice in person and once over zoom and.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Look, he can do zoom. He could have done zoom
in Bermuda.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And that's considered many many And I'm just one more thing.
I started by quoting a Republican assemblyman, uh, and let
me let me get his thing back up here because
this this is important to know named uh Tanjeepa, right, remember, yeah,
(29:55):
here it is Assemblyman David Tanjeepa from Fresno. He was
the one who said, basically, the California Fair Plan is
broke because they only have three hundred and fifty million
dollars they got to cover four hundred and fifty billion
dollars in assets. After he said that publicly, he was
taken off the committee by the Democratic Speaker Robert Reavis.
(30:19):
Reavis got rid of a number of Republican assembly people,
kicked them off committees when they publicly told the truth.
It happened to Carl Demayo from San Diego. He came
out and told us that story. Well, David Chandangeepa was
another one. He started speaking out about the insurance industry
and Revis cut off his head.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
You don't get to be on a committee if you're
going to tell the truth in public. This is what
you have with one party rule. All right, we got
more coming up.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Coming up after two o'clock, we're going to talk to
Michael Monks from KFI News. We've gone through all the
true mednis problems going on here in La A lot
about the fire. There's only been four permits issued for
the people in the Palisades. But what is the La
City Council doing. They're a proving motions to protect illegal immigrants,
(31:17):
trying to protect them from ice. That's what they're doing.
They're serving illegal aliens, not serving US residents.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I've got to just single at Stephanie Sierra, she's a
reporter for ABC seven in the Bay Area, that's KGO Television,
who did a terrific report and I think we played
about two thirds of it because it's very very long,
not even half Well, I want to condense some of
the rest of the report because I have a transcript here.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Just in the interest of time.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
She went after Ricardo Lara, the insurance Commissioner, because well,
the trigger that was him going to Bermuda to give
a fifteen minute speech instead of going to a Senate
hearing on the insurance.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Industry a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And this is after you have this insurance disaster that's
all over the state and you have the La fire disaster.
He's supposed to speak before the Senate. He doesn't. He
goes to Bermuda, and he does it on purpose because
they're all Democrats, so they let him get away with
going on these trips and missing all these hearings. He
hasn't shown up many and then when they talked to
(32:35):
Senate Democrat who's the chair woman of the committee, Susan Rubio,
she lies and says, oh, I've seen him here many times. No,
he's only gone twice since twenty nineteen, and once on Zoom.
He misses most of the meetings. In fact, I got
a transcript of Stephanie Sierra's report, and she obtained and
(32:58):
analyzed hundreds of public records detailing Ricardo Larra's expenses. Since
twenty nineteen, he has made forty six trips across the
country and all over the world.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
You want to hear a list.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Singapore, Cape Town, South Africa, Dublin, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, Scotland, Dubai. Hey,
he hit a lot of the places you went, Yes,
you ever traveled with him? I know he also went
to Arizona, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, d C.
(33:38):
And Connecticut. Why is he going to all these cities
around the world when he oversees the insurance industry in California?
What the hell's in Cape Town, Dublin, Chile. They're all
quote work related trips, but a significan chunk of the
(34:00):
records are missing, according to Stephanie Sierra, and the state
can't provide the records. The records they do have, it's
not cheap. Now to compare to other insurance commissioners in Illinois.
The insurance commissioner who just stepped down in the entire
(34:21):
year of twenty twenty two, he only spent six hundred
and eighty dollars on travel. Six hundred and eighty dollars
during the first six months of Commissioner Lari's term, his
trips cost taxpayers thirty three thousand, three hundred and thirty
six dollars. Was that like sixty times but the Illinois
(34:46):
commissioner spent He got an all expense paid week long
trip to Bogata, Columbia for an LGBTQ political leaders conference.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Okay, so what does that have to do with insurance?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Ricardo is gat.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Okay, what does that have to do with insurance?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, he's a political leader.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
He got a flight at a five star hotel stay
in New York City for Pride Fest, where his schedule
included a vip rooftop event with DJ Kitty Glitter. The
four day trip did not list any insurance related meetings
on his schedule.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Well, there you go.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Did we pay for that? It said in all expenses
paid week long trip. Did I assume we paid the expenses?
Speaker 9 (35:39):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Nobody wanted? To answer Channel SEVENS questions in San Francisco,
he had took twenty one trips with the National Association
of Insurance Commits. E eleven of them were funded by NAIIC,
(36:07):
So we pay for a lot of trips and then
there's all these other trips that the insurance, this insurance
commissioners group pays for.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Well, instead of you know what, instead of that insurance
commissioners group paying for some of these trips, why don't
we put that money and UH and give us back
our money?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Right, give the insurers money back.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Or maybe he could stay home.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And work on this insurance disaster that he's partly responsible for.
Ricardo Lara cal Fart Larra, what'd you think was gonna happen?
But people voted for him because he was a Hispanic
gay Democrat. So at the jackpot, on on the UH,
(36:55):
on the woke diversity machine. But is he a good
insurance commissioner? No, because insurance companies are fleeing the state
and there's no money in the state insurance plan to
cover all the claims that are coming. Where are they
going to get the money? The state is seventy six
billion dollars in deficit. Keep voting the way you're voting
(37:20):
when we come back. Speaking of Hey, you've been listening
to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear
the show live on KFI AM six forty from one
to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
This is why you came, right, Give us something good
and then we'll be happy.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. Well, you it doesn't matter who's here. You'd
still be reading the news every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Oh maybe not.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We are here from one until four and then after
four o'clock. If you miss anything, you can hear the
podcast John Cobelt Show on demand also on the iHeartRadio app.
In a moment, I have one question quiz, so be ready.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I hate quizzes.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's one question.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I know. It's just I'm so bad at quizzes.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's taking a guest. Oh no, I thought you were
like an A.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Plus student And it depends I was a.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Girl in the front row with your hand up all
the time.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Yeah, it just depends.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, well this is it is a math question.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Oh forget it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So what I told you.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Right after the fire happened and they started talking about
recovery LA stronger moving forward. I said, the recovery is
going to be a big botch if Karen Bass is
in charge of it, because she and her staff brought
you here all right. Remember you had city hall management,
(01:23):
fire department management, the DWP more than management. That whole
place is ridiculous, and they brought you all the conditions
that led to this devastating fire. We had an attorney
on yesterday for some of the palisadess residents who explained
in further detail what the DWP did to create this
(01:45):
fire situation. Not only did they have and they didn't
supply hardly any water, they also supplied power lines that
fell on the brush when a power pole snapped, and
that started a second large fire at the top of
the Palisades up in the hills there twelve hours later.
(02:07):
Listened to yesterday's show and you'll get all the details.
The question is, though, if we're in recovery mode, how
quickly are we recovering? So I'm going to play your
story from Channel seven in a moment, but I want
to do the quiz first and deborn. Eric, you can
give us your your guess. It's been two months, seventy
(02:29):
five days after the Palisades fire. How many permits do
you think have been issued for homeowners to rebuild? Two hundred?
Eric says two hundred twenty four four permits have been issued.
Here's the details from ABC seven Carlos Grnda.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
We want to get going the Palisades rebuilding residents.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
At this City Council committee hearing held on the West Side,
we're here to discuss how to move forward.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
The blessing here is that we have been given an
opportunity to show the world how you do disaster relief
and rebuilding effectively.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
But the Department of Building in Safety toll the committee.
So far it has approved just four permits. Council Member
Tracy Park, who represents the Polis Aides, says that's not acceptable.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
You know, when I hear in a committee meeting like
we had today that only four permits have been issued
and we're on day seventy five post fire, that is
concerning to me. And I don't think it is necessarily
a lack of interest in rebuilding. I suspect it is
indicative of systemic issues that we need to continue to
focus on.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Mayor Karen Bass hired a private consulting firm to oversee
the recovery effort. The contract with Haggardy Consulting is ten
million dollars, and some council members say that raises questions.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
We have city departments who know how to do this recovery,
who have been involved in recovery efforts of the past,
and yet they can't be afforded the opportunity to hire
the personnel that they need. But we can give a
ten million dollar contract to an outside agency to help
write a report for us.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
For me, just is it's obscene.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Some worry the city is in such a delicate financial
situation it could make the recovery efforts and even dealing
with routine city services that much more difficult. The city
is facing a budget deficit of one billion dollars next year.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
The loss of business and tax revenue is going to
impact us. I mean, we are looking at hundreds of
billions of dollars in economic losses overall here. And I
don't think there is any real easy way to sugarcoat this.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It's a mess.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Karen Bass, Ricruso, Ricaruso, Karen Bassu with Karen Bass running things.
And by the way, you notice the only two council
people speaking out in support of the homeowners who are
suffering has been Tracy Park and Monica Rodriguez. The only
(04:59):
one who've been critical of everybody in government running these
various departments looking for explanations. Now, how do you I'm
confused here. The Department of Building in Safety said they've
approved only four permits they've had.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
What do they do all day?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
John, they must be very busy going through all the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
And you know it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Just four permits have consumed the last eleven weeks. What
is that a permit every two weeks roughly?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
It's the people who lost their home's fault. They're feeling
out things incorrectly or they're doing something wrong.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
We're going to come to that. I bet I bet
you eventually you're going to hear some of these. They're
going to be sources at the Department of Building and
Safety who are going to blame the Palisades owners the
same way we played that of one of Bass's underlings
blaming the Palisades owners for not doing the proper brush clearance.
Remember ye that they're living in a fire prone area
(06:10):
and you know they should have known this was coming.
So I suspect that's what most people in city Hall,
in these various agencies think. I'm sure they have a
day to day hostility towards the homeowners who got burned
out and they find this whole situation to be just
a big burden on them. They're forced to do work
(06:31):
that they don't want to do, that they don't do well.
And then people are now going to be complaining. The
Palisades homeowners are going to be yelling at them for
the next seven years.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And they don't like that. They're used to sitting in.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Their little hovels or better yet, they're at home in
their bathrooms and fuzzy slippers, and now they've got to
do work. You know, they're used to laying on the
sofa with a bowl of popcorn and their cats, watching
daytime television.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And they be laid off soon.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, then what's going to happen exactly, which brings us
to Haggardy Consulting. Now they're getting ten million dollars. What
are they doing with ten million dollars? Because la is
broke and as Tracy Park pointed out, we're just going
to get broker and broker because the revenue is falling
(07:22):
substantially in every every source of taxation is dropping, sales tax,
property tax, you name it, the mansion tax. They're actually
thinking of suspending the mansion tax. That five and a
half percent extra tax on homes that sell over five
million dollars. They because there's a lot of people in
(07:43):
the Palisades, they can't they can rebuild their home, but
they sell it, they got to pay five and a
half percent, and so they want some kind of pause here.
You want to give away five and a half percent
after the fire and give it to the people who
were incompetent at handling the fire. I mean, I can't
(08:08):
imagine how furious the people in the Palisades are.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Oh and I'm sure the DWP is going to be
raising rates as well.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well. Yeah, because because.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
They're going to have so many lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
They got to pay for the water to fill up
that reservoir.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Jessica Rodgers, you may have heard her quote and she
says the blessing here and I thought this is a
bizarre quote. She's president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association.
I guess she's trying to be positive. The blessing here
is we've been giving an opportunity to show the world
how you do disaster relief and rebuilding effectively. That's not
(08:43):
going to happen. The disaster reef and rebuilding is not
going to be effective. It's going to drag on for many,
many years because Karen Bass and all the city workers
that predate her in downtown Los Angeles are lazy and
incompetent and stupid. And I used to say this years ago,
(09:06):
and people would say, oh, could you do that?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
How could you say that? It's like, what, It's obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
It's like looking up in the sky and saying, wow,
the sky is blued today. It's obvious. And now here's
a test case. Four permits. What did I tell you
yesterday about after the fire Lehana? It's now I think
a year and nine months. You know how many homes
(09:32):
have been rebuilt? Six So we've got four permits in
seventy five days in Hawaii. Six homes in a year
and nine months. This is this is the way the
government is. This is the bureaucracy. They make it impossible
and complicated, and they're lazy and they're stupid. And I'm sorry.
(09:56):
You're going to see You could say, oh, you're being mean,
your stereotyped thing. Bryst like, okay, okay, you see what happens.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
You're not being very positive.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Didn't a moist pine collar call in last week and
say that you're not positive.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yes, yes he did, I'm not positive. Okay, well I'm
looking for something to be positive about.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
La Strong.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
Was that?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah? Whooao Li Strong.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We're going forward shouting out stupid slogans, doesn't build homes.
When we come back, we're gonna tell you the story
of Ricardo Lara cal Fart Lara as he's done around here.
He's the insurance commissioner. He is getting a lot of
(10:42):
heat because he went to Bermuda instead of attending a
legislative hearing on the insurance industry. And they only have
two or three of these a year, and he decided
not to show up because he went to Bermuda because again,
you stay here, you got to deal with the La fire.
You gotta deal with the Altadena fire. And you know,
(11:03):
everybody's upset. They're getting their insurance canceled. The insurance companies
aren't paying off for the fires. You know, State farms
jacking up the rates. Other companies are pulling out. Oh
that's a lot of work, This is a pain in
the ass. How about we go to Bermuda. Turns out
he's gone on a lot of trips and it's not
unusual for him not.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
To show up. We'll talk about it coming up.
Speaker 9 (11:27):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Welcome Moistline Friday eight seven seven Moist eighty six. You
want to get in on it eight seven seven Moist
eighty six, or use the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.
Cal part Lara Ricardo Lara, who went from being an
idiot legislator in Sacramento introducing bills where he wanted to
(11:54):
require all cows to wear a large device on their
backs so when they fart, the device would capture said
fart and the methane and then they could recycle it
or bury it or I don't know what this was
to slow down climate change. Swear to God, this guy
(12:16):
ends up being the insurance commissioner. And what do you
know when you have a guy who's such an idiot
that he gets a bill passed to regulate cow farts
and to require cows to wear some complex device on
their backs. You put them in charge of the insurance industry.
(12:38):
You think it's going to turn out, Well, well it
hasn't because insurance is so effed up and talking about
it in any detail, it gets really dry and poor.
Speaker 10 (12:51):
It.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
However, I know just from personal experience, almost everybody is
angry about their insurance in this state. Its extremely expensive.
It's going up like crazy, not only homeowners insurance, car insurance,
fire insurance, earthquake insurance, all of it. And we've had
all these fires and disasters. And I don't know if
(13:12):
you noticed. This week they expanded the fire maps. The
fire maps now that cal fire put out cover a
much larger geographical area, which means more and more of
you are going to get whacked with bigger fire insurance bills.
By the way, I can't believe the price of car insurance.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
My wife called me over a couple of nights ago
and she goes, look at this, and I was in shock.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
It's crazy how expensive it is.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
She handles all the bills and sometimes I go wild
in between keeping track of what those kind you know
what insurance costs?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Oh my god, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And it comes up and you haven't been in an accident, right?
Speaker 5 (13:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
In fact, when I get into minor bumps, we paid
out of pocket. Yes, there's no point in reporting it,
you know, Between the deductible and and your premiums going up.
You know, I'd be better off just driving the car
to a lake, which is.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Why you need to take mass transit.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Oh, what was that latest disaster today?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Didn't diet a truck and a metrorail collide. I forget where.
I just saw a headline. To me, it was just
another day. Was yeah, well, so we're gonna play you
report here because cal fart Lara skipped off to Bermuda
(14:37):
rather than talk to the legislature about the insurance situation
in the state. A lot of people in the Palisades
had their insurance pulled and they end up in the
Fair Plan, which is the state run plan. And the
Fair Plan will only cover you up to three million dollars,
(14:57):
which doesn't go very far in the Palisades obviously, and
I don't know what the proportion is for homes that
are that don't cost as much. But there a few
weeks ago there was going to be a hearing and
an assemblyman on the commit Insurance Committee, David Tanjepa, he's
(15:21):
a Republican from Fresno. He's on the Insurance Committee, Tanjeepa,
and he had said this publicly. I really believe we
need a larger sense of urgency for the issues we
see today. It's dire. If we look at the California
Fair Plan, listen to this. We barely have three hundred
(15:41):
and fifty million dollars to cover four hundred and fifty
billion dollars in assets the people who have homes insured
under the Fair Plan. Those homes are worth four hundred
and fifty billion dollars in total. What the Fair Plan
has in its bank account is three hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's less than one percent. He says.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
We need leaders in the state, especially the Insurance Commissioner,
being here to go to every single meeting because every
single California is going to feel this. And of course
Lara skipped out on a hearing to go to Bermuda
to speak at a conference. And Lara has been criticized
(16:29):
as well because it took him a long time to
try to come up with a new plan to stabilize
California's insurance market. Because since twenty twenty three, seven of
the twelve largest insurance companies have either limited their policies
(16:52):
or stopped providing policies. They pulled out either completely or partially,
and he's supposed to come up with through regulations, but
he's not showing up for meetings. When he finally showed
up for a meeting, they wanted to know why it
took you so long, and Lara replied, well, could I
(17:12):
have moved quicker?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Absolutely? Well, but why didn't you?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
He's getting scolded by the legislators for taking way too
long to come up with a plan because the insurance
situation is a disaster. Oh could I have done better? Absolutely,
but you didn't. You didn't do better. You failed. Why
because you're cal fart, Lara. You're not qualified to do this.
(17:40):
And maybe for years and years nobody knew who the
insurance commissioner was. Maybe it didn't matter, but now insurance
is extremely expensive.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
A lot of people can't get it.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You've you've had these these fires because of the incompetence
of Karen Bass and Genie Kinoniez and Kristin Crowley and
the city council all the rest the county leaders. You
know in Altadena, not to mention the fires in Northern California.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Insurance.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
If you read an insurance company, would would you write
a fire policy here? Would you write a fire policy
in the Palisades. The reason that Palisades Insure the insurance
company pulled out of the Palisades. They knew the reservoir
was empty, they knew two of them were empty. They
saw that the brush clearance was simply not done. They
fly drones over the Palisades and they said, oh, this
(18:34):
doesn't look good. They got out of there. All right,
we come back eighty seven. We have to go to
San Francisco because nobody, nobody down here is going to
report on it. Stephanie Sierra, she's gonna She did a
long story on Ricardo Lara taking not just the trip
(18:59):
to Bermuda and he was supposed to be at a hearing,
he took a series of taxpayer funded trips, skipped out
on a series of meetings. So cal fart Lara, like
Karen Dass, would rather travel out of the country than
do their jobs while everything's burning. That's coming up next.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Part of the reason the insurance industry is so screwed
up here in California, there's a number of reasons. There
are a lot of natural disasters in this state, and
part of it is we have an incompetent legislature, an
incompetent boob. Who's the commissioner. His name is Ricardo Lara,
(19:52):
so old cal fart. Lara was the subject of a
story ABC seven Bay Area a reporter named Stephanie Cara.
This is about Ricardo Lara going on a series of
taxpayer funded trips. We've told you about how he ran
off to Bermuda recently instead of appearing at a Senate hearing,
(20:12):
and he has skipped out on a number of meetings
so he could bounce around. He ain't. Karen bass I
don't know if they had the same travel agents. Now,
this is a long report, so we're probably going to
have to play this in sections and see where it
takes us.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
As California's insurance crisis HiT's a breaking point, the state's
top insurance boss is nowhere to be found. During the
legislature's first insurance briefing of the year, a Senate Committee
hearing in the wake of the LA.
Speaker 11 (20:38):
Flyers, Michael Martinez here on behalf of Insurance commission Ricardi Lota.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So where's the commissioner?
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Turns out he was at a conference in Bermuda with
insurance executives to give a fifteen minute speech. Lada did
the same thing in March twenty twenty three and twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (20:54):
Four, Karen behalf of Insurance commission Ricardo Laura.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
Missing another assembly insurance here also while he was on
the islands in Bermuda. Yet weeks later, the Commissioner was
able to make a legislative study tour in the UK
for eight days, and he wasn't laid for his climate
presentation to the Central Bank of Uruguay later that month,
and he definitely did not miss his flight to Honolulu
(21:19):
the following week for a policy training. Public records show
taxpayers picked up his four star hotel bill. And this
didn't just happen once or twice, but at least seven
other times. We found the Commissioner was absent from insurance meetings,
some while traveling abroad or across country. During his first
year in office, Commissioner Lada missed two insurance hearings while
(21:40):
on trips to DC and to Florida. Now in between
those two trips, he took another six thousand dollars trip
to Paris for an economic development conference. Taxpayers picked up
that bill.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
And as we found out.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
This trend continued from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two.
Records show Commissioner Lada was absent for the only two
Senate insurance hearings held that year, according to his schedule,
he had prior engagements. Same story. The year after that,
in March twenty twenty three, the Commissioner was absent for
the first Senate insurance hearing of the year.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Why.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Record show he was on a taxpayer.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
Funded trip to Toronto for a United Nations conference on
sustainable finance. Unclear if there was any relevance to California insurance.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Hells, that's right, it stops sustainable finance.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. What a
load of craps.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
What these the scam these scammers, They create these conferences,
and if they use the word sustainable, that's supposed to
justify all these politicians and lobbyists and grifters and schemers
to spend taxpayer money to fly there and enjoy all
the food and the booze and the hookers. Mike, by
the way, I've been taking notes. He's got to Uruguay,
(22:58):
the uk DC, Florida, Paris, Toronto, and Honolulu.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
You know, I love to travel too, John, Right, maybe
I need to get his job.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Maybe you should run for insurance commitment.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And then I'll get all these trips.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How bad could you be for free? For free? There
you go work for free? So how about that?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And this is all by the way, she was listing
the trips he took when he missed Senate committee hearings
on insurance. And he's the commissioner, and we got a
thousand problems with insurance. My god, DC, Florida, Toronto, Honolulu, Uruguay, Uruguay,
the UK. And this last trip that he took to Bermuda,
(23:45):
he only spoke for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
He could have done that by zoom.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Does zoom work in Bermuda?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Probably?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Maybe the Bermuda triangle got in the way.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, if he had to do something, I mean,
I mean just zoom and project it on a screen
up on stage. He doesn't have to fly to Bermuda
for fifteen minutes. And the state senators they don't understand
the insurance industry. You know, they vote based on how
(24:22):
much bribe money that they get from the insurance companies.
Nobody's representing the public there. It's supposed to be Lara
representing the public. We know what the politicians are going
to do because they're getting campaign checks.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
You know what's really irritating about insurance is we pay
so much money, as you were talking about righteous car insurance.
We pay so much money and then when there is
a car accident, or an accident or a fire, then
all of a sudden the rates get raised or insurance
companies can't afford anymore to ensure us.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Well, then why are we bothering to pay for insurance?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I know, I mean, look at the people in the palisade.
There's a hard cap on the Fair Plan. People are
in the Fair Plan, which is the state run plan,
only because the other insurance counties kick them out right,
So what are we supposed to do? How are people
supposed to live in this state? Because we have a
half thundered fire department. We have the DWP that left
(25:19):
two major reservoirs empty.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We have a mayor who flew to Africa. What's with all.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
This flying around? He's going to Uruguay. She's going to Africa.
She went to Africa for a cocktail party. He went
to Bermuda for fifteen minutes of a speech, fifteen minutes.
I mean, because it's not about the cocktail party with
(25:48):
the Ghanian president, it's not about speaking before the insurance industry.
It's about they want to live the high life while
they're in office. When they get out of office, all
this disappears, and they're very sad and depressed because right
now they're living off us suckers, and you people keep
(26:10):
voting for these greedy morons. Karen Bass loved being a
congresswoman for ten years because of the travel. She traveled
to Africa a lot. She decided that was going to
be her area of focus. Why what that had to
do with the constituents back in La Nothing. But you know,
(26:34):
everybody's got their favorite part of the world they want
to visit, and hers is Africa. You know, if I
could get the company here to pay for you know,
six trips to Italy, I'd do that. Yeah, I got
Italy every two months. If they wanted to pay, I'd like.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
To go back to Dubai and finish my trip.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well, wait till I tell you about the Dubai story.
Oh no, oh, yeah, I got a battle story. You
saw that. I've known about it for long before the
story came up in an email.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I guess I wasn't on the email.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, no, actually I don't put you on the email.
All right, let's play more of this.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
We found out this trend continued from twenty twenty one
to twenty twenty two. Record show Commissioner Ladda was absent
for the only two Senate insurance hearings held that year,
according to his schedule, he had prior engagements. Same story
the year after that, in March twenty twenty three, the
Commissioner was absent for the first Senate insurance hearing of
(27:29):
the year.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Why.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Record show he was on a taxpayer funded trip to
Toronto for a United Nations conference on sustainable finance. Unclear
if there was any relevance to California's insurance market, but
taxpayers paid for his three night long stay. Then, on
May tenth of that year, he missed the next Senate
insurance hearing. Unclear why his schedule shows he was working
(27:52):
that day.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
He travels a lot, He's everywhere, but in his chair.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
Yet, the state told us Commissioner Ladda's rigorous meeting schedule
is a key part of his commitment to protecting consumers
and safeguarding the integrity of the insurance market. I asked
the chair of the Senate Insurance Committee about it.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Were you surprised by that?
Speaker 11 (28:09):
What's your response to these repeated absences?
Speaker 10 (28:13):
Well, I have to say that I have had many
hearings where he is present and many times. You know,
the legislature has its own calendar.
Speaker 11 (28:21):
And when you say many, I just looked at all
of the meetings that took place since he was elected
in twenty nineteen, and he had only appeared for the
informational hearings to two of them, and one of those
two times was via zoom.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
Well, I've been chair of the Insurance Committee for six
years and unfortunately we had two years in betrained where
we we're not allowing people to come and present in person,
and so there's many times where he did present via zoom.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Video recordings from the Senate website show LATA only joined
those hearings via zoom once.
Speaker 10 (28:50):
Oh, inter, thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
In January twenty twenty four, and that hearing was the
first one hosted after the governor signed an executive order
calling a LADA to do more to address the insurance crisis.
Record show after that, he attended.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
That was Senator State Senator Susan Rubio, who's involved in
her own scandal on the side, which is not worth
getting into. But do you realize she said, I've seen
him many times at the hearings, and it turned out
it was twice in person and once over zoom and.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Look, he can do zoom. He could have done zoom
in Bermuda.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And that's considered many many And I'm just one more thing.
I started by quoting a Republican assemblyman, uh, and let
me let me get his thing back up here because
this this is important to know named uh Tanjeepa, right, remember, yeah,
(29:55):
here it is Assemblyman David Tanjeepa from Fresno. He was
the one who said, basically, the California Fair Plan is
broke because they only have three hundred and fifty million
dollars they got to cover four hundred and fifty billion
dollars in assets. After he said that publicly, he was
taken off the committee by the Democratic Speaker Robert Reavis.
(30:19):
Reavis got rid of a number of Republican assembly people,
kicked them off committees when they publicly told the truth.
It happened to Carl Demayo from San Diego. He came
out and told us that story. Well, David Chandangeepa was
another one. He started speaking out about the insurance industry
and Revis cut off his head.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
You don't get to be on a committee if you're
going to tell the truth in public. This is what
you have with one party rule. All right, we got
more coming up.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Coming up after two o'clock, we're going to talk to
Michael Monks from KFI News. We've gone through all the
true mednis problems going on here in La A lot
about the fire. There's only been four permits issued for
the people in the Palisades. But what is the La
City Council doing. They're a proving motions to protect illegal immigrants,
(31:17):
trying to protect them from ice. That's what they're doing.
They're serving illegal aliens, not serving US residents.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I've got to just single at Stephanie Sierra, she's a
reporter for ABC seven in the Bay Area, that's KGO Television,
who did a terrific report and I think we played
about two thirds of it because it's very very long,
not even half Well, I want to condense some of
the rest of the report because I have a transcript here.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Just in the interest of time.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
She went after Ricardo Lara, the insurance Commissioner, because well,
the trigger that was him going to Bermuda to give
a fifteen minute speech instead of going to a Senate
hearing on the insurance.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Industry a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And this is after you have this insurance disaster that's
all over the state and you have the La fire disaster.
He's supposed to speak before the Senate. He doesn't. He
goes to Bermuda, and he does it on purpose because
they're all Democrats, so they let him get away with
going on these trips and missing all these hearings. He
hasn't shown up many and then when they talked to
(32:35):
Senate Democrat who's the chair woman of the committee, Susan Rubio,
she lies and says, oh, I've seen him here many times. No,
he's only gone twice since twenty nineteen, and once on Zoom.
He misses most of the meetings. In fact, I got
a transcript of Stephanie Sierra's report, and she obtained and
(32:58):
analyzed hundreds of public records detailing Ricardo Larra's expenses. Since
twenty nineteen, he has made forty six trips across the
country and all over the world.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
You want to hear a list.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Singapore, Cape Town, South Africa, Dublin, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, Scotland, Dubai. Hey,
he hit a lot of the places you went, Yes,
you ever traveled with him? I know he also went
to Arizona, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, d C.
(33:38):
And Connecticut. Why is he going to all these cities
around the world when he oversees the insurance industry in California?
What the hell's in Cape Town, Dublin, Chile. They're all
quote work related trips, but a significan chunk of the
(34:00):
records are missing, according to Stephanie Sierra, and the state
can't provide the records. The records they do have, it's
not cheap. Now to compare to other insurance commissioners in Illinois.
The insurance commissioner who just stepped down in the entire
(34:21):
year of twenty twenty two, he only spent six hundred
and eighty dollars on travel. Six hundred and eighty dollars
during the first six months of Commissioner Lari's term, his
trips cost taxpayers thirty three thousand, three hundred and thirty
six dollars. Was that like sixty times but the Illinois
(34:46):
commissioner spent He got an all expense paid week long
trip to Bogata, Columbia for an LGBTQ political leaders conference.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Okay, so what does that have to do with insurance?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Ricardo is gat.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Okay, what does that have to do with insurance?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, he's a political leader.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
He got a flight at a five star hotel stay
in New York City for Pride Fest, where his schedule
included a vip rooftop event with DJ Kitty Glitter. The
four day trip did not list any insurance related meetings
on his schedule.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Well, there you go.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Did we pay for that? It said in all expenses
paid week long trip. Did I assume we paid the expenses?
Speaker 9 (35:39):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Nobody wanted? To answer Channel SEVENS questions in San Francisco,
he had took twenty one trips with the National Association
of Insurance Commits. E eleven of them were funded by NAIIC,
(36:07):
So we pay for a lot of trips and then
there's all these other trips that the insurance, this insurance
commissioners group pays for.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Well, instead of you know what, instead of that insurance
commissioners group paying for some of these trips, why don't
we put that money and UH and give us back
our money?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Right, give the insurers money back.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Or maybe he could stay home.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And work on this insurance disaster that he's partly responsible for.
Ricardo Lara cal Fart Larra, what'd you think was gonna happen?
But people voted for him because he was a Hispanic
gay Democrat. So at the jackpot, on on the UH,
(36:55):
on the woke diversity machine. But is he a good
insurance commissioner? No, because insurance companies are fleeing the state
and there's no money in the state insurance plan to
cover all the claims that are coming. Where are they
going to get the money? The state is seventy six
billion dollars in deficit. Keep voting the way you're voting
(37:20):
when we come back. Speaking of Hey, you've been listening
to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear
the show live on KFI AM six forty from one
to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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